Elections in Britain
Also by Dick Leonard THE BACKBENCHER AND PARLIAMENT (co-editor with Valentine Herman) CROSLAND AND NEW LABOUR (editor) THE ECONOMIST GUIDE TO THE EUROPEAN UNION GUIDE TO THE GENERAL ELECTION PAYING FOR PARTY POLITICS POCKET GUIDE TO THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY THE SOCIALIST AGENDA: CROSLAND S LEGACY (co-editor with David Lipsey) WORLD ATLAS OF ELECTIONS (with Richard Natkiel) A CENTURY OF PREMIERS: FROM SALISBURY TO BLAIR Also by Roger Mortimore EXPLAINING LABOUR S LANDSLIDE (with Robert Worcester) EXPLAINING LABOUR S SECOND LANDSLIDE (with Robert Worcester) POLITICAL COMMUNICATIONS: THE GENERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN OF 2001 (editor, with John Bartle and Simon Atkinson)
Elections in Britain A Voter s Guide Dick Leonard Journalist and Author and Roger Mortimore Senior Political Analyst, MORI Fifth Edition
Dick Leonard 1968, 1991, 1996 Dick Leonard and Roger Mortimore 2001, 2005 Foreword David Butler 1968, 1991, 1996, 2001, 2005 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First edition, Elections in Britain, by R. L. Leonard, published 1968 by D. van Norstrand. Second edition published 1991 by Macmillan Press Ltd. Third edition, Elections in Britain Today: A Guide for Voters and Students, published 1996 by Macmillan Press Ltd. Fourth edition, Elections in Britain: A Voter s Guide, published 2001 by PALGRAVE Fifth edition, Elections in Britain: A Voter s Guide, published 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St Martin s Press LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-4039-4256-2 DOI 10.1057/9780230511514 ISBN 978-0-230-51151-4 (ebook) This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
Contents List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgements Foreword by David Butler vi viii ix 1. Introduction 1 2. When Elections are Held 4 3. The Voters 12 4. Constituencies and the Electoral System 22 5. Political Parties: National 39 6. Political Parties: Local 73 7. Candidates 83 8. The Campaign in the Constituencies 104 9. The National Campaign 121 10. Polling Day 134 11. By-Elections, Local Elections, Euro-Elections and Referendums 144 12. Opinion Polls 164 13. How People Vote, and Why Some Don t 178 14. How Much Does it Cost and Who Pays For it? 197 15. An Evolving System 208 Appendix 1: British General Election Results, 1945 2001 212 Appendix 2: Other British Election and Referendum Results 215 Appendix 3: Proxy and Postal Voters 224 Appendix 4: Election Timetable 226 Appendix 5: Summary of Election Offences 228 Appendix 6: Occupations of Candidates and MPs 2001 234 Appendix 7: Opinion Poll Surveys Published during the 2001 Election 236 Appendix 8: Other Electoral Systems 238 Appendix 9: The Single Transferable Vote 246 Appendix 10: Miscellaneous Statistics, 2001 General Election 248 Notes and References 249 Bibliography 264 Index 268
List of Tables 2.1 Duration of Parliament, 1918 2001 5 2.2 Dates of general elections, 1924 2001 9 3.1 Growth of the Parliamentary franchise, 1832 1985 14 3.2 Typical page from the electoral register 18 4.1 Large and small constituencies, 1992 and 1997 electorates 28 4.2 Conservative gains from redistributions, 1948 94 30 4.3 Percentage of seats and votes won by the parties, 1945 2001 33 4.4 Seats and candidates, 1945 2001 35 4.5 Voting figures in Feltham and Heston, 1987 and 1992: conventional swing 37 4.6 Voting figures in Feltham and Heston, 1987 and 1992: two-party swing 38 5.1 Conservative Party leadership election, 1997 53 5.2 Conservative Party leadership election, 2001 54 5.3 Labour Party leadership election, 1983 57 5.4 Labour Party leadership and deputy leadership elections, 1994 57 5.5 Co-operative Party candidates, 1945 2001 61 5.6 Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru candidates, 1945 2001 65 5.7 Communist Party candidates, 1945 87 66 5.8 Far-right candidates since 1970 68 5.9 Ecology Party and Green Party candidates since 1979 69 6.1 Subjects most often raised with MPs, 1996 7 78 7.1 Women candidates and members, 1945 2001 97 7.2 Occupational backgrounds of candidates, 2001 99 8.1 Impact of campaigning, 1979 2001 114 9.1 Total readership of Conservative and Labour daily newspapers, 1964 2001 131 9.2 Daily newspaper partisanship and circulation in 2001 131 11.1 By-elections 1945 2001 146 12.1 Polls in the final week, 2001 election 167 12.2 Accuracy of final election polls 168 13.1 Party preference by parents Conservative or Labour preferences, 1960s 180 vi
List of Tables vii 13.2 Falling support for Labour principles, 1964 74 181 13.3 Labour voters on Tory aims, 1979 182 13.4 Class composition of the electorate 1964 and 1983 182 13.5 Head of household s class and vote, 1983 183 13.6 Social grade and vote, 2001 183 13.7 Support for Labour by social grade and class self-image, 2002 184 13.8 Support for Labour among union and non-union members by social grade, 2001 185 13.9 Housing, class and vote, 1997 186 13.10 Region and voting, 2001 186 13.11 Class, neighbourhood, region and vote, 1983 187 13.12 Class, education and vote, 1983 188 13.13 The gender gap in voting, 1983 2001 188 13.14 Campaign s effect on vote choice, 2001 193 14.1 General election expenditure at national level 1979 2001 198 14.2 Breakdown of campaign spending, 2001 199 14.3 Expenditure by Parliamentary candidates, 1945 2001 202 14.4 Election expenses in Selby, 2001 203 A8.1 Largest remainder, four-member constituency 240 A8.2 Division by D Hondt divisors, four-member constituency 240 A8.3 Quotas and divisors: the formulae 242 A8.4 Scottish Parliament seats and votes in the West of Scotland region, 1999 243 A8.5 Distribution of top-up seats, West of Scotland 243 A8.6 Estimated outcome of the 1997 election (GB only) under different electoral systems 245 A9.1 Galway West result, general election February 1982 246 A9.2 First preference votes and seats won 247
Acknowledgements Table 13.1 is reprinted, by kind permission, from David Butler and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain, 2nd edition (London: Macmillan, 1974). Tables 13.4, 13.5, 13.11 and 13.12 are reprinted, by kind permission, from Anthony Heath, Roger Jowell and John Curtice, How Britain Votes (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1985). Tables A9.1 and A9.2 are adapted by kind permission from Paul McKee, The Republic of Ireland, in Vernon Bogdanor and David Butler (eds), Democracy and Elections: Electoral Systems and their Political Consequences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Appendix 6 reproduces by kind permission a table from Byron Criddle, MPs and Candidates, in David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 2001 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002). Table 7.2 summarises the same data. Appendix 8 is largely an updating of the introduction by Dick Leonard in Dick Leonard and Richard Natkiel, World Atlas of Elections (London: Economist Publishing Co., 1986), by kind permission of Economist Publishing Co. viii
Foreword David Butler Elections lie at the heart of democracy. But their detailed nature is little understood. Few people know in any detail about the rules and administrative arrangements that govern the franchise, or the casting and counting of ballots, or the way votes are translated into seats or the conduct and financing of campaigns. Fewer still comprehend what goes on in the minds of ordinary people as they decide whether to vote as they did last time or to switch to another party. What decides elections? What do elections decide? The answers to these questions vary greatly in different countries and even in the same country at different times. Since Dick Leonard produced the first edition of this book in 1968 much has changed and continues to change in the nature of campaigning. The contests of the 1990s saw a new professionalism in party headquarters in the use of direct mail and e-mail and focus groups, as well as in a 24-hours-a-day spinning of news. And since Labour s victory in 1997, new and different electoral systems have been installed for the Scottish Parliament, for the Welsh Assembly and for the Northern Ireland Assembly, as well as for the Mayor and Assembly in London. Moreover, the 1999 elections to the European Parliament saw the first nationwide use of proportional representation. Furthermore, before the 2001 election the government set up the independent Electoral Commission, the first full-time professional body charged with supervising the administration of British elections, and also of investigating and recommending future reforms to the system, whether minor or major. Statutory spending limits now apply to parties nationally as well as in the constituencies, and parties must now submit comprehensive accounts of their income and expenditure. The behaviour of the public is changing, too. Turnout has fallen across a whole range of British elections in recent years, and a smaller proportion of the electorate voted in the 2001 general election than on any previous occasion since the introduction of universal suffrage. Reversing this trend will pose a continuing challenge both to the Electoral Commission and the political parties. ix
x Elections in Britain Dick Leonard and Roger Mortimore are uniquely qualified to present a comprehensive, authoritative and down-to-earth guide for voters and for others to Elections in Britain.